Ashcroft, John David

1964 - Ashcroft was educated in Springfield, Missouri, and at Yale University, where he graduated.

1967 - He received a J.D. degree from the University of Chicago and briefly taught business law and worked as an administrator at Missouri State University.

1972 - Ashcroft ran for Congress in Southwest Missouri. Ashcroft narrowly lost the Republican primary to Gene Taylor, who went on to hold the seat for 16 years.

1974 - Ashcroft was narrowly defeated by Jackson County Executive George W. Lehr, who argued that Ashcroft, who was not an accountant, was not qualified to serve as state auditor.

1976 - Danforth was elected to his first of three terms in the US Senate, and Ashcroft was elected to replace him as attorney general.

1980 - Ashcroft was re-elected.

1984 - He was elected governor.

1988 - Ashcroft became the first Republican elected to consecutive gubernatorial terms in Missouri history.

1992 - Ashcroft served as Chairman of the National Governors Association.

1994 - Ashcroft was elected to the U.S. Senate from Missouri, again succeeding a retiring John Danforth.

1999 - As chair of the Senate's subcommittee on patents, he played a pivotal role in extending patents for several drugs, most significantly Schering-Plough's allergy medication Claritin.

2000 - He convened the first and only Senate hearing on racial profiling, on the 30th of March, with Senator Russ Feingold, where he stated that racial profiling is unconstitutional and said that he supported the concept of legislation requiring that statistics be kept of police actions.

- He became the first Senate incumbent ever defeated for re-election by a dead man.

- Ashcroft was nominated as U.S. Attorney General by president-elect George W. Bush in December.

2003 - Ashcroft and the acting DEA Administrator, John B. Brown, announced a series of indictments resulting from two nationwide investigations code-named Operation Pipe Dream and Operation Headhunter.

2004 - In March, Ashcroft entered the George Washington Medical Center with gallstone pancreatitis; surgeons removed his gallbladder within a week.

2007 - Ashcroft, who sent a letter on the 27th of February to his successor Alberto Gonzales criticizing the proposed merger of Sirius Satellite Radio Inc.